Search form

DMCA

DMCA

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) contains two main sections that have been a source of particular controversy since they went into effect in 2000. The "anti-circumvention" provisions (sections 1201 et seq. of the Copyright Act) bar circumvention of access controls and technical protection measures. The "safe harbor" provisions (section 512) protect service providers who meet certain conditions from monetary damages for the infringing activities of their users and other third parties on the net.

Congress ostensibly passed the "anti-circumvention" provisions of the DMCA to discourage copyright "pirates" from defeating DRM and other content access or copy restrictions on copyrighted works, and to ban the "black box" devices intended for that purpose. In practice the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions have done little to stop "Internet piracy." Yet the DMCA has become a serious threat that jeopardizes fair use, impedes competition and innovation, and chills free expression and scientific research. If you circumvent DRM locks for noninfringing fair uses or create the tools to do so you might be on the receiving end of a lawsuit.

The DMCA “safe harbors” protect service providers from monetary liability based on the allegedly infringing activities of third parties. To receive these protections service providers must comply with the conditions set forth in Section 512, including “notice and takedown” procedures that give copyright holders a quick and easy way to disable access to allegedly infringing content. Section 512 also contains provisions allowing users to challenge improper takedowns. Without these protections, the risk of potential copyright liability would prevent many online intermediaries from providing services such as hosting and transmitting user-generated content. Thus the safe harbors, while imperfect, have been essential to the growth of the Internet as an engine for innovation and free expression.

EFF has fought hard against the DMCA circumvention provisions in the courts, Congress and other forums, and has fought equally hard to make sure the DMCA safe harbors shelter innovation and creativity. Learn more through the links below.

Savvy parents know that every cloud-connected electronic gadget they buy for their kids is a potential hole in their network, a sneaky listening device that hangs around some of the most sensitive and personal moments of you kids' lives and the lives of your whole family. But tomorrow's smart parents...

Visit The Catalog of Missing Devices, a collection of tools, services, and products that could have been, but never were, because of DRM. For the most part, rightsholders don't object to user-created subtitling, which is key to making videos available to non-native speakers of the media's original language, and...

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we get into a Twitter fight with someone who gave our video game a bad review on YouTube. And when we say that we would never send a DMCA takedown for it. And when one mysteriously turns up anyway. This is...

Sebastian Tomczak blogs about technology and sound, and has a YouTube channel. In 2015, Tomczak uploaded a ten-hour video of white noise. Colloquially, white noise is persistent background noise that can be soothing or that you don’t even notice after a while. More technically, white noise is...

Today, we delivered a petition to the U.S. Copyright Office to keep copyright’s safe harbors safe. We asked the Copyright Office to remove a bureaucratic requirement that could cause websites and Internet services to lose protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). And we asked them to help...